The Sea Shepherd vessel the Bob Barker, blocking the slipway of the Nisshin Maru

Our friends aboard the Sea Shepherd vessel the Bob Barker have found the whaling fleet, and caught up to the Nisshin Maru factory ship. The Bob Barker is blocking the slipway of the factory ship, which means the Nisshin Maru won’t be able to take on or process any whales. This means that despite the attacks against Sea Shepherd ships by the massive and government-funded Japanese whaling fleet in the past couple months, the unarmed Bob Barker and its tiny crew of volunteer vegans have still managed to stop this year’s Antarctic whaling operations.

Four other whaling harpoon vessels are surrounding the Bob Barker, including the Shonan Maru #2, which rammed and sunk the SSCS vessel the Ady Gil. But as long as the Bob Barker is blocking the slipway of the whaling factory ship, the harpoon vessels and their arsenals won’t be able to continue whaling operations.

The Sea Shepherd fleet has been chasing the Japanese whaling fleet in Antarctica for about a month now, continually fighting off attacks from the harpoon vessel the Shonan Maru No. 2. Yesterday revealed quite a bit about the players on both sides of the conflict.

At first the Japanese did not acknowledge the Ady Gil’s post-attack distress signal. The Nisshin Maru finally acknowledged the signal without offering assistance to the ship sinking in Antarctica.

This behavior is getting a bit lethal for even the Japanese Antarctic crew. Even when they chucked grenades at my friends and I on the Steve Irwin two years ago, they weren’t quite so brazen about trying to cause fatalities. New attacks like these suggest they’re more malevolent towards humans than even we thought.

Update: This post at first stated that the Ady Gil wasn’t moving when the Shonan Maru No. 2 rammed and dragged the Ady’s bow before ripping it off. I since removed that statement because the debate of “was it moving?” became everyone’s sole focus of the attack. I’m keeping that statement off since the rest of the post seems to go unread if that statement is in, even though I stand by Captain Chuck Swift. But in case people are still curious to see if the Shonan Maru No. 2 actually did swerve to hit the Ady, here’s video of the ramming from the point of view of the vessel the Bob Barker.

Japan has released its 2009 cetacean research findings after killing dozens of whales for the study. Japan, which asserts that it must conduct fatal whaling for necessary scientific research, killed 59 Minke whales off its coast this year for the scientific program. And the conclusion of this year’s Japanese whaling program is that whales eat krill.

Because no one in Japan’s scientific community knew that or asked anyone else on earth.

It is, however, arguable whether or not this year’s findings have more scientific merit than Japan’s 2008 whaling research findings. In 2008, Japan announced – after stating it had to kill hundreds of whales for this research – that injecting dead whale sperm into a cow egg does not result in a half-whale-half-cow monster creature.

As the movie The Cove explains, the city of Taiji, Japan, is a huge contributor in Japan’s killing of over 20,000 dolphins per year for their meat. This year, however, international pressure has accomplished something amazing: Taiji has thus far suspended their dolphin hunt due to bad press.

Probably the greatest reason for the suspension is the fact that the city of Broome, Taiji’s sister city in Australia, has cut ties with Taiji due to the hunt. Unfortunately, Broome is considering reestablishing ties with Taiji today. If relations are reestablished, it may unfortunately result in Taiji resuming its dolphin hunt. Please tell Broome not to reestablish ties!

Tune in at 9pm tonight to see Captain Paul Watson and the Sea Shepherd crew battle Japanese whaling ships. If Season Two is anything like Season One, get ready for a wild ride. Animal Planet has gone all out to promote the show and the current Whale Wars crew has been making the rounds. Last night Captain Watson and crew members Laurens de Groot, Chris Aultman, Shannon Mann even made an appearance on CNN’s Larry King.

Make sure to check out Animal Planet’s site where you can even “Implicate a Friend” and send a personalized video claiming your friend is wanted in connection with anti-whaling activities. And this is via Animal Planet–a national channel with major advertisers… amazing.

Speaking of implicating a friend, SuperVegan’s very own Tod Emko, who appeared on Season One of the show, will not be making an appearance on Season Two as he was in the Galapagos and couldn’t make it on the boat for a second round. Check out the SuperVegan archive for all of Tod’s posts about his experiences protecting animals around the world.

If Sea Shepherd’s crew is indeed “a bunch of pirates” (according to a Greenpeace canvasser on the streets of NYC who was reacting to Tod’s Sea Shepherd-logo hat), then they are some pirates that I can get behind. Argggh matey!